Machine Minute - Boxed Bag Corners

Ever wondered how to make a bag stand up on its own? The secret is boxed bag corners! Watch this video to learn how.

Hi, I'm Jennifer here with another Machine Minute brought to you by Baby Lock and the Symphony machine. Have you ever wondered how you get a bag you're making to stand up on its own? The secret is in the corners! By boxing the corners of the bottom of your bag, you can make sure that it stands up. Now, one important thing when you're making boxed corners is you do want your seam on the side and the bottom to match up and to be straight, and I'll show you how to make that happen. First in the assembly of your bag, you will simply sew together the front and the back. But if you were to create this into a bag it would be more like a sack, it really couldn't stand up on its own. So the secret of making the boxed corners is then to match up the side seam and the bottom seam. And the way that you do that is really by pulling the two sides apart and aligning the side seam and the bottom seam. Then I take a pin, and I place it right into the seam on the side and pull away the bottom seams so that the pin goes straight through. And then I want to look at the backside to make sure my pin comes out exactly through that seam again. So you can see on the front side it goes into the seam and on the backside it comes out. And I'll adjust and pull those edges now that the pin is holding things together. And then on my opposite side, again I want to make sure I go right in through that seam and that my pin on the front side comes through the seam as well. So here it goes in the seam, comes out of the seam, and on the backside the same. I'm going to draw a line for how deep I want my box pleat. I'll line up this center seam with a line on the mat. I'll line up my ruler with that center seam, and then I'll decide how deep I want the box pleat to be. Now I choose about a two-inch boxed corner. That determines the width of your bag base. If I wanted to have a wider bag base, I could've gone to two and a half or three. If I wanted a narrower one, I could've gone to one and a half or even a one. But I thought two was good for the size of bag I was making. At that point then I'll place my ruler in position. And I'll draw a line across that part of the bag, and I'm going to sew exactly across the line that I have drawn. And I'm going to keep that pin in place until I just about reach it, and then I'll pull it out so I don't sew over the pin. But I make sure that I keep my seams aligned by doing that. Time to check my corner and make sure that I'm happy with the way things line up. And I am. And I also want to make sure that my bag sits evenly. So I'm happy with both sides. I can go back into the inside then and trim off this excess fabric. This is a great way to make sure you have a bag that can stand up on its own.